I'm going to take a wild guess here that Matt was hired by Lil Mayor Luke Ravenstahl -- not just because Matt is Lukey's biggest fan ever and BFF wannabe -- but because most local campaigns don't have much in the way of paid staff and because we know that Lil Mayor Luke has been hiring and advertising for staffers from as far away as DC (in keeping with his practice of hiring non locals) and because Matt brought up the mayoral race in the above exchange.

So Matt, I got to ask:

Are you working for Ravenstahl's campaign? If not his campaign, then which campaign hired you?

I ask this because yesterday -- the same day that you were supposed to start your new job -- you blogged about three local races: Mayor of Pittsburgh, City Council District 2 and City Council District 6.

Even by blogger standards it would have been unethical for you to blog about any of those races if you were a hired staffer of any of the candidates and you did not disclose any paid professional associations in your post.

"Even by blogger standards it would have been unethical for you to blog about any of those races if you were a hired staffer of any of the candidates and you did not disclose any paid professional associations in your post."

I think that's an interesting contention. I think I've had the same thought in the past, and it probably colored my view of some things in that past. But it's not my impression that Matt H is hiding his new employment. It's pretty brand new.

I would be curious about where one might read more about "blogging standards". Certainly in comments almost nothing seems to not be deleted. Almost.

Matt H has expressed the opinion that he would like to see Dowd and Georgia Blotzer come in third in their respective primaries. I am not sure what is gained or lost in the relative positions of the losers. It is, to me, an interesting question.

Regardless of whether Coghill wins or loses, Matt will have gotten valuable experience working that campaign, which I assume is the idea.

Emma: I have never had a problem supporting or working for an endorsed candidate. It's ridiculous to ask someone to blindly support someone based off an endorsement. Especially an endorsement that is being challenged in court right now. There was some funny stuff that went down at the endorsement and we want to get to the bottom of it.

I have a lot of respect for the committee but they don't dictate who I support. When I worked for Bob O'Connor on his 2nd run the committee endorsed om Murphy. How smart was that? O'Connor was clearly the better candidate. The committee doesn't always get it right.

Should Natalia Rudiak drop out of the race since she didn't get it & she serves as an officer in her ward?

"Even by blogger standards it would have been unethical for you to blog about any of those races if you were a hired staffer of any of the candidates and you did not disclose any paid professional associations in your post."

That's your opinion. I disagree with it. I don't have to disclose anything. There are no blogging standards out there. Blogs are like free writes in a journal. They are thoughts and opinions.

"Matt H has expressed the opinion that he would like to see Dowd and Georgia Blotzer come in third in their respective primaries. I am not sure what is gained or lost in the relative positions of the losers. It is, to me, an interesting question.

Regardless of whether Coghill wins or loses, Matt will have gotten valuable experience working that campaign, which I assume is the idea."

Ed: I am very against the Blotzer campaign. Hopefully a 3rd place finish would keep her from running again. It is always a plan to bury your opponents on election day to keep them from running again.

I am not working on his campaign to gain experience. I am in it because I believe he is the best man for the job and I believe in his message and skills.

OK, first I will take you at your word that your blog is full of 'free writes' and only 'thoughts and opinions' so no one should seek any facts there.

Second, I know that I need to be highly cautious of your 'thoughts and opinions' because who knows who may be paying you to say whatever.

OK, enough snark.

Would you want to read an article or an editorial (thoughts and opinions) about food safety in the P-G without knowing that the writer was being paid by the peanut industry or the government of China? I wouldn't.

Of course we all have our own biases which shape our opinions, but generally speaking, those biases and any resulting spin is probably much higher if there's a paycheck at stake.

That's all I'm saying.

Again, I did not think that you had an automatic need to post that you were working for Coghill if you never posted anything about Coghill or his opponents.

But, you put out there that you were being employed by a campaign so I do believe that anyone reading your blog deserved to know if you were writing about/on behalf of your employer.

You believe differently.

Here at 2pj, we've turned down offers from groups who wanted to pay us to 'guest post.' We have no problem taking advertising money as long as our readers know that it is advertising and not advertising posing as a blog post.

Readers of both our blogs can take all this into consideration when it comes to who to trust.